


Silence Is The Loudest Sound

by tjstar



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Drowning, Gen, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, Near Death Experiences, No Incest, Past Drug Addiction, Sibling Bonding, Sober Klaus Hargreeves, discovering new powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-04-24 18:11:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19178698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjstar/pseuds/tjstar
Summary: The first time Klaus makes Ben corporeal is an accident.





	Silence Is The Loudest Sound

_They_ keep calling, wailing, asking for help; lacking any manners, rude, ruthless. An adverse effect, a consequence of the sobriety that can no longer be muffled. By any chance, by _anything._

“How is it going?”

Ben’s voice is somehow louder than theirs.

Klaus replies with a slight smirk,

“The ghosts are rather creative.”

“You’re telling me,” Ben says, hiding a smile. Almost scornful, as if he’s the only one who’s suffering from being numb.

The bathroom used to be a dark, quiet place for Klaus and his crippled _friends,_ but now their howls are ricocheting off the tiled walls and dirty windows, striking his eardrums like needles. Sometimes he thinks he’s bold enough to make all of them shut up, either hallucinating of internal peace or simply giving up. Sometimes he needs his _medicine_ back, a pill, an injection, anything to poison his blood and his brain. To make the phantoms even more dead. But they’re chanting, screeching inside of his head, slipping into his nightmares and chasing him like bloodhounds.

He’s a radar, broken underneath the weight of ghostly problems.

_“He killed me and buried my body in his backyard…”_

_“She was just a nasty bitch so she deserved it!”_

_“I wanna go home, do you know where my home is?”_

_“Where’s my Mommy? It’s so cold out there…”_

_“I have a message for you.”_

_“He ignores us.”_

And finally,

_“Go to Hell, Klaus!”_

Klaus flinches, causing a tsunami to splash out of the bathtub, soap eats his teary eyes away. _The dead can’t hurt you, Number Four,_ Reginald’s voice joins the choir although Klaus has never been able to conjure him. _Be afraid of the living ones._ Klaus keeps repeating this like a mantra, _they don’t have bodies,_ but they have unsaid words that keep them stuck in between the two worlds.

_“Help us! Help us!”_

Not even Ben’s _Horror_ inside of him can keep the others away from Klaus; he almost wants Ben to keep training along with him. And Klaus can’t get their pleas out of his corroded mind, dealing with it sober is a torture. _Who said_ that he might be useful on this the Apocalypse issue? Nonsense. He can’t even talk to their dearest father whose stubbornness has only been multiplied after his death.

“What a lucky prick,” Klaus mumbles.

A single bulb on the ceiling throws lazy rays of light that make everything look even odder. Too long shadows, too dull colors of a blue-green palette. The water seems black as the light flickers; Klaus clamps his palms over his ears and sinks deeper, down and down, holding his breath for as long as he can.

Klaus solved his first murder mystery against his will when he was nine. There was a young woman with the slit wrists in the center of the mausoleum; she shoved too many horrible words in one sentence — _cheating, abuse, suicide._ He lost his sleep when his personal trainings started, he spent a half of his life trying to contact the spirits and wandering the cemeteries.

But then Ben joined him — deceased — because he had no place to go.

He’s still somewhere near, Klaus is sure; he’s terrified of the thought that one day Ben will not be there for him.

The water is cold, the bubbles might turn to snowflakes. Klaus can’t avoid this endless torment, he can’t escape or explain how much it hurts; he’s as desperate as the the ones who are calling for him. If they don’t care then neither does he; he’s been filling his lungs with smoke for years, his system can’t even work properly. Now he’s filling his lungs with water like balloons; he chokes and spits oxygen out, he can’t hear the ghosts for the first time in his life. The water turns even darker, they’re still staring at him through the void, faces and voices distorted.

_“You can’t leave us like this, Klaus, you coward!”_

And then,

Silence.  

 

***

The world is white and gray when he comes to.

His heart is still beating, pumping the terror through his veins; there are the dried leaves tickling his shoulders, the ground is cold underneath. Klaus was naked when his accident happened, but now he’s got his clothes on, these too vulgar leather pants with lacing and a too flowery shirt. If these are the clothes he’s been buried in, then his funeral was the weirdest ceremony ever — too bad he doesn’t even remember it now.

He’s drowned, oh. Not a great loss, he’d say. Scoffing at his own insignificance, Klaus gets up, swaying and leaning against the tree. It takes a moment of deliberation before he hears the rustling of the tires against the grass and a music box melody; there’s a teenage girl riding a vintage bike, and Klaus waves his arms at her.

HELLO—GOODBYE, the seance is over.  

The girl is creepily colorless too, she hits the brakes when the wheel is about to touch Klaus’ bare toes.

“You look like you’ve never seen the sun,” she says. “I think I gotta work on that more.”

And Klaus asks,

“Am I dead?”

“Pretty much,” she looks at him, still skeptical.

“Oh, that’s great. _Memento mori,_ all that jazz.”

Klaus puts his hand on his chest, almost relieved, almost.

The girl frowns.

“You can’t stay here.”

“Am I _really_ having some afterlife access troubles? Can we call this a lifestyle, at least? I wonder, huh,” Klaus hugs himself as the gust of wind washes over him. “Who are you?”

A tiny bell on the bike dings mournfully as she speaks.

“I have a lot of names, but I don’t have much time to introduce myself.”

“Oh, dear, you’re _God_ then. I should’ve known. I’d introduce you to my brother, Five, you would’ve liked that little arrogant bastard, I’m sure,” Klaus is just blabbering too much when he’s nervous.

And he’s nervous even when he’s dead.

Her answer hits Klaus like an onslaught of a vertigo,

“I know him. I know everyone, isn’t it obvious?”

It is, but there’s still no point.

“You gotta leave,” the girl hops back onto the bike. “Now.”

“But wait, I can’t, isn’t this the end?” Klaus runs after her, but he can’t catch her. “Stop! Please, I’ve got some important questions, and this is the only chance for us to talk like, tête-à-tête,” he exhales, feeling the fluids bubbling in his throat. “Wait…”

 _God_ disappears, mimicking into a monochrome landscape, and Klaus falls to his knees, hitting the ground with his fists and hacking up water that’s spilling out from his lungs, from his stomach.

He gasps for breath, failing and maybe dying again.

 

***

“Klaus… Klaus!”

He might’ve relapsed and overdosed again, and this is where his memories get chopped like a bunch of onions. Was he dead? Certainly. What’s going on? Rhetorical question. Sensations come first, a bone-deep cold and a headache, and there are large puddles of froth all over the —

All over the bathroom floor.

He retches up nothing, rolling over onto his side and blinking his tears away. He emerges out of the deafening silence, slowly realizing he’s gotten back without the help of a defibrillator this time. His hips are covered with a towel, his nose is bleeding and his throat is on fire, his cheekbone begins to swell.

Klaus groans and spits a mouthful of water.

Ben keeps bustling around.  

“How did you do that?!”

“Excuse me, but I’m a bit busy, Ben,” Klaus wheezes out. _“Oh?”_

Ben _rubs_ Klaus’ back as he keeps coughing. Amazement suffocates him, his lips are wobbling and blood splatters against the floor as he sits up. Ben’s emitting a soft blue gleaming, cracking his knuckles before holding Klaus by the shoulders for support. There are fingerprint-like bruises forming on both Klaus’ forearms, fitting perfectly for the size of Ben’s hands. Klaus clings to him, tugging at his leather jacket in attempts to get up, but the floor is too slippery so he gives up. Ben is as cold as ice, blue glowing is like a barbed wire that doesn’t let Ben’s palm go through Klaus’ flesh; he smiles shyly and highfives Klaus’ HELLO hand.

“I’m like your co-pilot now. You somehow made me _corporeal_ before passing out.”

“I thought I’d pass _away,”_ Klaus wipes his bloody nose.

“Not on my watch,” Ben shakes the drops of water off his sleeves. “Sorry, I dropped you. Twice.”

“Thanks.”

Klaus laughs on the brink of crying when the aureole around Ben begins to fade to gray; both shocked, they sit there still until Ben’s touches are illusive again. But Klaus’ life is saved.

For now.

**Author's Note:**

> title from: [The Great Beyond](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94qMn6PVSJg)


End file.
